Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune

by Roselle Lim

  He loved Laolao. No wonder he snapped when I started questioning her cooking.

  With Ma-ma gone, he was the only one left who knew my grandmother. He cooked with her. He’d been there when Laolao wrote down her recipes.

  I had to try. I had nothing left to lose. My fingers flew to my collarbones. The crisscross marks there had already healed. I wouldn’t allow him to wound me with his words again. Perhaps the Old Tiger needed to see I shared the same claws as Laolao, though mine were still growing in.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  I headed to Old Wu’s restaurant.

  The afternoon crowd had dwindled to a handful of tables. I slipped past the folding screens and walked over to Old Wu at his customary seat, sipping his tea and grazing on a cold plate of spiced chicken and sliced pork hock. He ignored me as though I didn’t exist.

  I slammed my palm onto the table. The force shook the plates and sloshed the tea from his cup. Old Wu finally raised his eyes. I had been nervous walking in, but now my nerves were overtaken by a kind of bravery borne from desperation.

  “The restaurant didn’t survive the fire, but I did. I came to you earlier for help and I let you speak. It’s my turn now and you will listen.” I pressed both hands against the table. Old Wu stared, his lips pressed into a thin line. If it weren’t for the soft rise and fall of his chest, I would have thought I was speaking to a statue.

  “I want to open the restaurant, but I can’t because something’s wrong with Laolao’s recipe book. I don’t know what it is. You’re the only one left that knows her as well as Ma-ma did. I’m doing this to help my neighbors and myself. I can’t walk away from them when they need me.”

  The old man said nothing.

  “You say you want to save the neighborhood. But even before the fire, you said you might block me. But as one of the leaders of Chinatown, you should be better than that. You’re supposed to look out for what the community needs. Maybe I messed things up, but at least I’m trying to help us all. You’re nothing but a hypocrite.”

  With my final words, my bravado fled and my voice faltered. Then the song of my heartbeat returned, thumping in a steady rhythm, marking the passage of time. One. Two. Three. No answer. I raised my chin and turned to leave.

  He lowered his teacup onto the table. “Are you done speaking?”

  I nodded.

  “Please.” The old man gestured for me to stay.

  I pulled out a chair and sat down.

  “When you came back, I was certain you would sell the building and cut the last ties you have here. You’d been gone so long, what reason was there for you to stay? Then you started cooking. Fai, Anita and Wayne, and especially Celia sang your praises to me. It sounded like Qiao had returned. I wasn’t sure what to think or believe. But if even a fire cannot drive you away, perhaps I was wrong about you. Maybe you do care after all.”

  He rose to his feet. “A true test of a cook is her skill. Show me, Tan girl. Let me see if you can cook. Prepare me a dish tomorrow in your kitchen. If I like what I eat, I promise I will answer all your questions about your grandmother.”

  * * *

  The next day, we met at my apartment. The cat took one look at the old man before bolting off into one of the bedrooms to hide. As Old Wu busied himself reading from a stack of Ma-ma’s old issues of National Geographic, I turned the kitchen into my kingdom. No nervousness or uncertainty. I focused on the joy of creating.

  I began the process of transforming the slab of pork belly in the fridge into my version of a Shanghai-style dish. I chopped the lean meat into bite-size pieces, and then blanched and browned them in demerara sugar and sesame oil. The sizzle and occasional pop accompanied the incomparable, savory aroma of rendering fat. As the meat stewed in its juices, I created a sauce comprising pink peppercorns, star anise, cloves, sweet soy sauce, and Chinese rice wine in the hot wok. I braised the pork belly, checking in at intervals to ensure the tenderness of the meat.

  One hour later, I served the dish in a shallow clay bowl with diced cilantro as a garnish.

  Old Wu closed his eyes. His nose twitched as he inhaled the delicious aroma. He used his chopsticks to pluck a piece off the plate. The sticks dripped with the viscous sauce as he bit into the tender pork. He nodded, bobbing his head to a phantom melody as he chewed with deliberate bites. After four more pieces, he wiped his mouth with a napkin and finally spoke. “Is the dish done to your satisfaction? Would you change anything in how you prepared it?”

  “Yes, it turned out exactly how I wanted it. The pork is tender and the spices, the right balance. I wouldn’t change how I prepared it. I could have used a traditional clay pot, but the results would be the same.”

  “I see.” He struggled to keep his expression blank. A cough escaped his clamped lips, followed by another, until he was overcome with a bout of coughing.

  I rushed to fill him a glass of cold water. “Mr. Wu, are you all right?”

  He held out his hand. After the last cough, he burst into laughter. Tears escaped the corners of his eyes. His lean body convulsed with every guffaw. What was happening to him? Meimei padded out of the bedroom and stared at him from across the room.

  “Mr. Wu?” I asked. “I don’t understand.”

  After his laughter died down, he sipped his water. A smile lingered on his lips. “Tan girl, you can cook. Oh, how you can cook.”

  He liked it. He liked my food. He was smiling at me. I couldn’t have imagined this even if I tried. Of course, I had used my own recipe. Serving something to him from my grandmother’s book would have been foolish.

  “It reminds me of hong shao rou, but your preparation is different,” he said.

  “I tasted this in my travels and loved it. I think the added sweetness complements the spices I chose.” Though my voice was steady, I linked my fingers behind my back to prevent them from trembling from excitement.

  “Very good, and unlike your laolao’s style. Different but in a good way. You have convinced me that you have what it takes to continue your grandmother’s legacy. I will answer whatever questions you may have for me.” The tone of his voice had changed. I recognized it, for it was the same one he reserved for Celia.

  The animosity I had grown accustomed to was gone. Tension melted away from my neck and shoulders. Perhaps I would get the answers I so desperately hoped for. “I want to ask you about my grandmother.”

  “Is this related to you opening the restaurant?” he asked.

  “Yes. It’s all related. However, I can’t open anytime soon. The damage is extensive. I was lucky the fire didn’t reach upstairs, or spread,” I confessed.

  Old Wu took a sip of the tea. “If you want to, you can make the impossible possible. The women in your family are steel because they refuse to bend under the direst of circumstances, Ye Ying,” he said.

  Ye Ying. Nightingale. Its songs were the most beautiful in the bird kingdom, and legend had it that its magical song had cured a dying emperor. It was a name worthy of a new beginning. Meimei slinked her way onto Wu’s lap. I expected him to push her off, but he surprised me by smiling and rubbing beneath her chin. She mewed happily.

  Wu smiled. “It’s funny that you mention Qiao. You remind me so much of her. You have inherited her spirit.”

  Was this the beginning of a strange friendship between nightingale and tiger?

  “Before I can speak of her, I want to apologize,” Old Wu said before sipping his tea. His dark eyes were direct. “I am a bitter old man. I have never been fair to you or your mother. I judged Miranda harshly. To compare her to Qiao was not fair. Miranda was her own person.

  “When she decided not to continue with the restaurant, I was angry because I was there when Qiao arrived from China with nothing. I was a new immigrant myself having come from Hong Kong four months earlier. Qiao and I became friends at the market. We’d always fight for the best vegetables and fish. S
he lived in an apartment with three other women near where you live now. Her roommates were seamstresses. When she spoke about food, I knew she was a cook.

  “But in this new world, life was hard and jobs, scarce. I’d been lucky. My uncle helped me get work at the restaurant. Qiao had no family here to advocate for her. No one wanted to take a chance on her, but she prevailed. She proved them wrong with one taste of her cooking. I thought Miranda was throwing away everything Qiao had worked for, but I realize now, she was saving it for you.”

  “You really were close to my grandmother,” I said. It confirmed what I’d read in Ma-ma’s journals.

  A wry smile crossed his lips, softening his usually stern countenance, and I caught a glimpse of the man who might have been a good friend to Laolao. “Qiao was not perfect. Her temper was legendary.”

  The faraway look in eyes suggested he was losing himself in nostalgia. “When she was hired as a cook in one of the busiest restaurants in Chinatown, she found out that she was earning only half of what the other cook was making. The other cook was a lazy man—the son of the owners. She was furious. She quit the same day and sought out her former employer’s rival, offering her services for a low wage with the caveat that if business doubled, so would her pay.”

  “I’m guessing she triumphed?” I asked.

  “No. Her new employer was as shifty as her former one. Business doubled but she never received what she’d been promised. So she cursed them both. In her anger, she went blind for a week. The two restaurants suffered so much ill luck afterward that, eventually, they went out of business. Even though Qiao regained her eyesight, her anger never subsided, so her curse remained. There was another restaurant across the street, but as you can still see, nothing survives there.”

  Curses were like salting the earth. Hearing about Laolao from Old Wu’s perspective filled in the gaps for me. He was the connection to the woman I’d never met but had always wanted to.

  “You eat up my stories about your grandmother like a child nibbling on sweets. Did Miranda not tell you much about your laolao?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “I think it is because she might have found it too painful to speak of her. I was the same way for years after Qiao died. Such is the case when one loves too much.”

  “So you did love her?” I asked, recalling that my mother had thought the same thing.

  He cradled his teacup. “How could I not? I was one of many that loved Qiao. She had a way about her that attracted people. Her temper was as famous as her capacity for kindness. Qiao welcomed all new immigrants into the area with a meal and connected them to what they needed. Helping people was one of her many specialties. Yes, I loved her. I have always loved her, but she only saw me as a good friend.”

  “Was it because of my grandfather?” I asked.

  He refilled his empty teacup. “The day she told me she had lost her heart to the Shanghainese hotelier, all I could do was be happy for her. I could tell by the way she looked at him, everything and everyone else disappeared. At the time, I would have given anything for her to see me in the same way.”

  The old man’s voice softened like fresh pork buns from the steamer yielding to a fork.

  “When Qiao found out she was carrying Miranda, I knew she’d made her choice, and it wasn’t me. She never ended up marrying the hotelier because she didn’t want to move back to China. She was determined to raise her child on her own. I’d been foolish in thinking she’d accept my affections, but when she refused, I didn’t take it well.” He paused, lowering his eyes for a brief moment. “I was also very upset when your mother decided not to continue with your grandmother’s restaurant. The neighborhood needed it. It felt like Miranda had turned her back on all of us. But I shouldn’t have been so harsh on her. She had a sickness that prevented her from leaving the house after your laolao died. In retrospect, I should have been kinder to her.”

  I swallowed before mustering a nod. Old Wu inspired fear, a remnant from my childhood that had never faded over time. But here he was, petting the cat and saying more to me this afternoon than he had during the span of my entire life.

  “Misplaced anger is an old, bitter habit, one I am ashamed of having. I behaved terribly when you came back into town and when I invited you to the restaurant. I thought that if you were home, Miranda’s death could have been prevented. But I only blamed you because I could not blame myself.”

  “You’re right. I should have been home. I blame myself for her death.”

  “No, it wasn’t your fault. Miranda’s death showed me how much I’d failed Qiao. When Miranda died, I was there when the ambulance came. All of us were shocked that she walked out of the building. I hadn’t seen her in years but knew she was still alive. Every week, someone in the neighborhood visited her, and as long as they did, I did not worry. She was still young. But it all changed that morning.”

  Yes, my life also had changed that day, and I still didn’t know why my mother stepped outside.

  “Since it is too late to help your mother, I want to help you. You are what your neighbors need. You said earlier that the recipes were going wrong, but now that I have tasted your cooking, I do not believe it is because you failed the execution of them. You mentioned the fate of the restaurant was tied to these recipes somehow?”

  I told him about Miss Yu’s prophecy and its conditions.

  “May I see the book?”

  I placed the heavy book onto the table and pushed it toward him.

  Old Wu marveled at the cover for a brief moment before flipping through the pages. He seemed to be searching for something specific, finally stopping at the spot where the three pages were missing. He gently pushed the opened book toward me.

  I straightened the book before me. “Ah, you’ve seen the damage. I don’t know what was in these missing pages, but I am hoping you might. I think it could be related to what’s going wrong.”

  “Miranda ripped these recipes out when Qiao told her she had to run the restaurant. They were special dishes she and her mother had cooked together. She burned them in defiance. Qiao told me about it years ago. She was very upset at the time. I agree with you: this represents a severing of harmony that must be the reason the recipes aren’t working as they should. If you can repair the book, I am certain the troubles with the neighbors will be solved.”

  I was shocked. Ma-ma had burned the pages. Yet Ma-ma’s relationship with Laolao had been complicated. I had known this for years. Ma-ma’s delicate temperament would never have allowed her to run the restaurant. She must have been horrified when her mother insisted she follow the family line. The family business became the point of contention between them.

  “I have confidence that you will solve the problem with your grandmother’s book, and once you do, the restaurant needs your attention. I will not stand in your way. Ye Ying, if you will allow it, I want to help you. You have the skill and passion to succeed.”

  One of the most successful restaurateurs of Chinatown was offering me his aid. I would be a fool not to welcome his valuable advice. Hours ago, I’d thought I had lost everything, but now I had purpose again, a clear path to my goal, and support from the most unlikely of places. Faith rushed in from every direction, like water gushing from a broken dam.

  “I can’t possibly accept such a generous offer,” I blurted.

  Meimei mewed at me as though she was calling me an idiot.

  Old Wu smiled. “I insist. This is something I can still do for Qiao. What I’m offering is a mentorship.”

  No hesitation. This was a gift. “I’m honored to accept your help, Lao Wu,” I said. “Thank you.”

  He set Meimei down and rose to his feet. “Then let us start now. Show me the kitchen that was damaged by the fire.”

  * * *

  We headed downstairs to the restaurant. Inside, Old Wu conducted a thorough inspection of the damage, an
d we discussed our options while he took copious notes in a small notepad he kept in his back pocket. Now that he was not taking the role of antagonist, he proved to be quite the ally.

  I slipped The Barber of Seville record into the Victrola and lowered the volume to ambient level. Old Wu walked to the counter and examined the ruined goddess. He reached out to touch her, but pulled back at the last moment.

  “She was beautiful once,” he said. “Qiao had her displayed in the same spot. She was the symbol of prosperity in the neighborhood. I hope when you take over, we can see her restored.”

  I blushed. “I wish for the same thing.”

  “As for the kitchen, I am going to be honest with you,” he said. “I estimate the repairs will cost at least one hundred and twenty-five thousand. When you factor in new electrical, plumbing, and possible structural damage, updated appliances, and redesign for a more efficient space, it’s a reasonable figure.”

  My heart sank. The bank would never loan me that much. I wiped my damp hands on my white skirt.

  “Do not lose hope. I will give you the loan on three conditions: first, that we have a weekly meeting to discuss your progress; second, that you will cook me a meal once a month; and third, the full amount must be paid back in five years. The meetings will facilitate our mentorship, the meal will act as a trial run for the new dishes you want on the menu, and the last item will motivate you to succeed. A time frame shorter than that would be insurmountable, and a longer one would be more like a gift than a loan.” He leaned forward. “This is a means for you to make your own way, Ye Ying.”

  His terms were more than fair.

  “I accept your generous offer, Lao Wu,” I replied.

  “By the way, I prefer not to be reminded of my age.” A rusty chuckle escaped his lips. “If you want to, you can call me Lao Shi since I will be your mentor.”